Phantom Pains
by NJ Coffee Queen
Summary: Now a prisoner of the Capitol, Peeta Mellark reflects on the pain of all he has lost since becoming a victor.


Just a little one shot I worked up after finishing _The Mockingjay_. I own nothing, I swear. Enjoy!

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Phantom pains.

The doctors at the hospital said he would have them. He was a Hunger Games victor, his life saved by a handful of poisonous berries. His leg was another story though. The scene was still so clear in his mind. Cato, bloodied and crazed, running toward them as a pack of wild wolf-like muttations chased him. They ran from the woods to the wide, open air plain and the cornucopia. Cato made it up first, followed by Katniss Everdeen. With all her might, dwindling as it was, she attempted to pull him up beside her. But the mutt latched onto his leg.

Peeta Mellark recalled the pain as teeth ripped through flesh and muscle, as warm, sticky blood soaked through his tattered pant leg. Finally, Katniss pulled him to safety. The fight continued despite the disorienting dizziness that accompanied blood loss. He vaguely recalled the headlock Cato had him in as Katniss lined up her arrow to finish off the District 2 tribute. She hesitated, her gray eyes locking with Peeta, as she tried to figure out a way to save him and eliminate Cato. He had drawn a bloody X on the tribute's hand; a target. Ever the perfect shot, she hit the X, and Cato fell into the pit of mutts.

His screams continued into the night, and the longer they waited for the cannon to fire, the more life drained from Peeta Mellark. Pieces of clothing became makeshift tourniquets and bandages. What little medical supplies they had left between them were used in an attempt to save his life. Katniss, the girl he had loved since childhood, held him, kissed him, assured him he would survive the arena and be made good as new.

With Cato gone, they would be declared the victors. They would be rescued from the hellhole, the nightmare that was the Gamemakers' sick, twisted arena. His leg would be repaired, his scars would fade, and life could go back to being as normal as it could for two District 12 kids who had lived through the Hunger Games. Riches would be showered upon them. Twelve would be given the food they needed to survive. Peeta could be with Katniss without the fear of death looming over their heads.

And then the announcement came. Only one could be the victor. One would have to kill the other. Already within Death's reach, Peeta tossed aside his knife, his only weapon, and begged for Katniss's arrow to make it a quick death. Instead, she lowered her loaded bow and pulled out the nightlock. "Do you trust me?" she had asked. And there was no hesitation when Peeta replied, "Yes."

Each armed with a handful of lethal berry, on the count of three, they would eat them, kill themselves, and there would be no 74th Hunger Games victor. He would no longer be a pawn in their Games. The Capitol would no longer be able to control him. Katniss knew his true feelings for him, even if she was unable to reciprocate them. He loved her, she knew it, and he could die happy knowing it was a secret he would not take to the grave. On three, he shoved the handful of berries into his mouth, but didn't chew, didn't swallow. A new announcement boomed through the arena. It was over, and there would be two victors. He heard Katniss retch as she spit out the berries before she checked on him. They were alive, but Peeta could feel his energy slipping away.

When he awoke days later, his leg felt cold. Hollow. Missing. There was a pain he couldn't place. Throwing back the blankets, it was then he discovered that the bottom portion of his leg was gone, and in its place a plastic and metal, man made, prosthetic leg. His leg - flesh and bone and muscle and blood - was gone. The morphling drip dulled most of the pain, but when he returned to District 12, the pain erasing medication was gone, and he was left with phantom pains.

Now, trapped in a 10 foot by 10 foot cell deep in the heart of the Capitol, Peeta feels the phantom pain return. The Quarter Quell was still fresh in his mind - the kisses on the beach, the pearl he extracted from the clam shell, Beetee's seemingly failed attempt to take out those not aligned with them. Then he was separated from Katniss, and try as he might, was never able to reach her. The claw came down, the one that took fallen tributes, and she was gone. No, not dead, he told himself. The cannon never fired after she shot down the force field. She wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. He loved her too much to allow such a thing.

Though separated, he knew he would make it back to her. They would be together until they drew their last breaths. He would die for her, had sworn it from the moment he was first reaped for the 74th Hunger Games. Apart, he was tortured for information; anything the Capitol could use against Katniss and the rebels who inhabited District 13. But he knew nothing. Had no knowledge that many of the victors were part of the rebellion. His cell shared a wall with one - Johanna Mason. She had information, and was tortured violently for it. She refused to break even as the crimes against her became more severe.

Peeta feared what they would do to him now. He lay in the small cell with nothing beneath him but a dirty concrete floor. Blood dripped from his forehead, several cuts above his eyes. His nose was broken, his lips torn, and he feared his end would come from choking on his own blood. His limbs scream with each miniscule movement he makes. Blue eyes shift to the one piece of him they can't hurt - the artificial leg. They had tried taking it away, but the surgeons had fused it to his skin so well, it would not budge.

For days, he was left alone after warning Katniss of the impending attack on District 13. He was supposed to have no knowledge of it, and neither were they. Snow, from the second Katniss stepped into her sister's place at the reaping, had wanted her dead. And now, he's attempting to use Peeta to do it. Ripped from his cell, armed guards drag Peeta to a laboratory, one he had never seen before. He heard the buzz long before he saw them. He had heard them once before during his first trip to the arena - tracker jackers. Katniss had dropped a nest of them on him and the Career tributes, ending Glimmer's life and disorienting the rest for days with the poisonous venom they pumped into the bloodstream.

Images of her came to mind. Thoughts and memories, hours of longing to see her again, flooded his mind. The shivering, starving 11 year old to whom he tossed loaves of burned bread. The girl in the trees as she tried to evade the Careers intent on killing her. The girl he loved who kissed him and held him and nursed him back to health in the arena, only to later reveal she had done it to win the game. She would never love him as he loved her. She would never fully give herself to him.

He felt each sting, whether it came directly from the wasp or from a needle, he couldn't be sure. But the venom seeped into his blood, distorting his memories of her. He tried to fight it at first, knowing that was what she would try to do. But he eventually succumed to the hijacking. If he ever saw her again, ever had the opportunity to be in the same space as Katniss Everdeen, he would kill her as she had tried to do to him so many times.

Back in his cell, tired, weak, poisoned, he felt it again. The phantom pain. But now he felt it no longer in his leg, but his heart.


End file.
